Join THE Club or deposit in RCI?

[KathyA Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close KathyA]

We own two weeks at Flamingo Resort in St. Martin. As we own eight other weeks in St. Martin (all in the same unit), we do not use our Flamingo weeks anymore. For the past several years we have rented them out. As we rented for the maintenance fee only, we never had a problem renting them. Since the maintenance fees have now gone to $1013 per week for a sleeps 4 deluxe studio, we are now findng that renting will be more of a problem. So my quandry is what to do with these weeks. Selling them in the current economy is not feasible, even though I would be willing to sell for very little. Each of these weeks is worth 4500 points. I have inquired with Diamond as to what it would cost to join THE Club. The answer was $2900 which would buy us 1200 additional points for a total of 10200 points. Our maintenance fees would currently be less with THE Club than we pay on the units themselves. (Side note, we also own 19000 points with The Hilton CLub in New York and love that points-based system).

The other alternative would be to re-join RCI as the units are affiliated with RCI. We haven't traded in years with RCI as our other eight weeks in St. Martin are affiliated wih II. (Oddly, although we belong to II, and although THE Club trades with II, we are told that we cannot list our units with II uness we are in THE Club.) My hesitation with rejoining RCI is that I only hear bad reports about the trading possibilities with them.

So my question is, based you your expieriences, which would you do--join THE Club, or rejoin RCI? Since I've read lots of bad reports about both I am a little gun-shy about what to do. Thanks.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

I guess it's going to come down to a matter of preference. Personally, I am no big fan of RCI. The only weeks I have with RCI are my HGVC week and a week we own in Branson. I do not maintain an personal RCI account and I haven't been exchanging my HGVC points through RCI. In short, I just don't care for RCI.

THE Club trades pretty well through I.I. Some will say that their corporate account has considerably more pull than an individual account when exchanging. I really haven't noticed it being any stronger than the weeks backing my THE Club points.

I do find THE Club points to be as versitile as my HGVC points. Maybe a little more so as I can use unused points to offset my MF's or THE Club dues each year. THE Club also has more destinations than HGVC for internal exchange purposes but, DRI's quality in resorts isn't near that of Hilton.

THE Club has a yearly fee of (I believe) $266. It went up last year and, thanks to some issues I had with DRI crediting my account, I'm not 100% certain of the currant fee. This fee does cover all units rather than HGVC's method of $99 per unit and, covers internal exchange fee's. There are additional fee's if you use your points for anything other than timeshare stays. I believe you are allowed one free guest certificate but I think DRI announced that, after that first free guest certificate, there would be an additional charge if you wanted to allow someone else to use your points.

Granted I've had issues with some of the things DRI has done over the past couple of years and I'm definately not thrilled with the MF to resort quality ratio when comparing my Marriott and Hilton ownerships but, THE Club does work very well for exchanging and stretching the value of your owned weeks.
So far I have not regretted transfering my weeks into THE Club program.

[KathyA Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close KathyA]

Doug: Thank you! This is just the kind of information that I need. I didn't realize, for example, that you could use your points to pay for maintenance fees--that would be a big plus! Thanks for your post. Kathy

PS: I'm also not a fan of RCI. That's why I let my membership lapse about 10 years ago, and everything I've read since then leads me to believe they've only gotten worse.

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

A belated Welcome to TS4Ms and the DRI Forum

We own two weeks at Flamingo Resort in St. Martin. As we own eight other weeks in St. Martin (all in the same unit), we do not use our Flamingo weeks anymore. For the past several years we have rented them out. As we rented for the maintenance fee only, we never had a problem renting them. Since the maintenance fees have now gone to $1013 per week for a sleeps 4 deluxe studio, we are now findng that renting will be more of a problem. So my quandry is what to do with these weeks. Selling them in the current economy is not feasible, even though I would be willing to sell for very little. Each of these weeks is worth 4500 points. I have inquired with Diamond as to what it would cost to join THE Club. The answer was $2900 which would buy us 1200 additional points for a total of 10200 points. Our maintenance fees would currently be less with THE Club than we pay on the units themselves. (Side note, we also own 19000 points with The Hilton CLub in New York and love that points-based system).

The other alternative would be to re-join RCI as the units are affiliated with RCI. We haven't traded in years with RCI as our other eight weeks in St. Martin are affiliated wih II. (Oddly, although we belong to II, and although THE Club trades with II, we are told that we cannot list our units with II uness we are in THE Club.) My hesitation with rejoining RCI is that I only hear bad reports about the trading possibilities with them.

So my question is, based you your expieriences, which would you do--join THE Club, or rejoin RCI? Since I've read lots of bad reports about both I am a little gun-shy about what to do. Thanks.

It's not odd at all and if you take the time to read the 'history' on this forum, you'd understand that it is THE Club that is affiliated with II, so if you're a Club member, that's what you get. If you're an owner at the resort it depends on that resort's affiliations. Some are actually dual affiliated and can trade weeks with both II and RCI but Flamingo is not, you get RCI only.

$2900 for the Club with NO extra points is a bargain price if you refer to the history in the conversion thread, so you're doing quite well there. Many find that they are told that they must buy 2000 extra points for $5000 to join THE Club but if you peruse their paperwork at the sales center, it says the 'real' price to join THE Club which they waive that day is $2995. You need to add up all new costs though. Your maintenance fee becomes less because you're being converted to The Trust which has average fees less than your very high Flamingo fees BUT in addition to the MFs on the points in the Trust there is an annual Base Fee (no matter how many points you own) that is assessed for The Trust and there is the Club annual fee. Doug says $266 for the annual Club fee, I thought it was a total of $255 last year and $235 this year but that difference is all in the weeds. The annual Base Fee was likely ~$200 and the annual MF for the Trust was like $0.104/point. That all still is less than 2x1063 or whatever you're paying and when they convert people like you with those high fees it just means the average fee of the Trust rises MORE the following year.

[longtimer Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close longtimer]

Doug: Thank you! This is just the kind of information that I need. I didn't realize, for example, that you could use your points to pay for maintenance fees--that would be a big plus! Thanks for your post. Kathy

We joined the club for the flexibility in exchanges and have been very happy with our decision. While that allows you to use your points for other options, be aware, IMO, these are not very cost-effective uses of your points. Also, if you look at some of the other threads on this forum, there are deadlines for using the points for MFs and some people ave had trouble getting proper credit to their accounts when doing so.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

In my opinion, one of the biggest issues you need to consider is the extent to which you believe DRI's network of resorts matches your travel desires. That is, how much of your exchanging needs can be satsisfied without going outside DRI.

If DRI can accommodate most of your exchanging needs, it makes sense to join DRI. You will find it far easier to obtain accommodations in places you want to visit through the Club. You won't have to put in exchange requests and hope something appears; you will be able to see availability right away at the 10-month mark, book it, and make your other plans. The points allows you to trade up or down, and to book stays for less than a full week.

If you can do most of your travel within the DRI system, it's a lot easier to work with and use than RCI or II. And you can still get out to II through The Club on those occasions when you do want to travel outside the DRI system.

But if you think you will want most of your exchanges to involves resorts or locales that you can't address within DRI, you will probably be bettor off staying outside The Club and using your week like a regular old timeshare week.